Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, doesn't seem to believe that judicial orders, including those issued by the Supreme Court of the United States, should be followed if he disagrees with them.

One might wonder how the states might be united at all if every judge thought like Moore. But the judge is not troubled by such things.

Back in 2003, Moore refused to remove a 2-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments that he had installed in the state judicial building — even after a federal appeals court ruled it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. His defiance cost him his job when an ethics panel found he had "placed himself above the law."

Moore managed to get re-elected in 2012, and he took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Yet now he has told lower-level judges to follow in his destructive footsteps. This time the issue is same-sex marriage, but the principle is the same: respect for the rule of law.

Same-sex marriage is not popular in Alabama. In 2006, the state's voters overwhelmingly voted to outlaw it. But a federal judge in Alabama struck down the ban, as judges have done recently in more than a dozen other states, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to put the ruling on hold. That means the state's probate judges should have started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday.

However, many of those judges refused after Moore ordered them to continue following the rejected state ban. One judge said he was caught between the federal court order and Moore's dictate: "I want to uphold my oath, but what law do I follow?"

The answer is easy. A federal court order supported by the U.S. Supreme Court trumps Moore's personal opinion.

Not only is Moore's stance wrong, it recalls a shameful history of Southern resistance to civil rights for African Americans in the name of states' rights.

Flouting the law is what Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus did in 1957 when he sought to keep nine black students from enrolling in a Little Rock high school after the Supreme Court had struck down segregation. And it's what Alabama Gov. George Wallace did in 1963 when he tried to stop black students from integrating the University of Alabama.

Both ultimately lost. And both turned out to be on the wrong side of history.

Gay marriage is as contentious today as civil rights was then. While 52% of Americans now back it, views still vary widely by region. In New England, where all six states allow same-sex marriage, support is at 71%. The south-central USA remains the only part of the country where opponents remain the majority.

Mostly through court rulings, 37 states allow gay marriage, and the Supreme Court will take up the issue in April.

Given the deep religious beliefs involved, that's not likely to be the end of the story, any more than the court's Roe v. Wade ruling ended debate over abortion. But it should settle the rules of argument. Once the high court has ruled, everyone who wants a civil society needs to behave accordingly — even the pugnacious Roy Moore.